Chords for Lap Steel Guitar Lesson - C6 - Country, Blues, Western Swing

_ _ Hey, Steve Cunningham here.
I want to talk a little bit today about just a
pretty simple little chord sequence in C6 tuning, okay, _ _ and
C6 is kind of unusual for for me.
Usually I play in E6 and
_ _ _ The cool thing about this particular application here is that pretty much everything is going to be on strings 2 3 [G] & 4
So we want it what we want to do is if you're in a tuning other than C6
Just look for the tuning the excuse me the strings that give you a _
_ _ Major second or a whole step and then [Am] _ a minor third or a step and a half
[N] Okay, so if you're in any kind of six tuning you're gonna have those three adjacent strings that are gonna
Give you those intervals, so you should be good to go _
I put this in C6 just because I think that's probably you know probably more folks playing that than E6 so there you have it
_ Okay, so this example here is in the key of A.
Okay, so we go to the ninth [C#m] position _ _ _
_ Which is our A6 chord in C6 tuning, okay?
_ _ [N] Okay, now what we're gonna.
Do is we're gonna kind of blues these chords up a little bit so one thing that you can do with with
_ _ Little block chords, so if you want to make it sound bluesy
You can just follow the first three or four notes of a blues scale okay, and play something like this
[Cm] _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ [C#m] _
_ _ _ _ _ [F#m] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ [A] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [F#m] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Okay _ _
_ Now [F] what I'm gonna do is to take we're gonna start with the second chord here
Which is the the minor third [F#] above [B] our home base here?
[A] _ _ _ [C] _
_ Okay
_ _ [Fm] The high note [D] is you know sort of clashes a little bit because it has a minor third on top so we're gonna
Do is we're gonna use a string pull I use my pinky you know use your third finger
Whatever is easiest, and I'm gonna pull that a half step to make that an a7 chord, so here's [C#m] my _ a6
_ And here's my a7
[A] _
_ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
7 and I can put the the e on top okay, which is gonna be the 5 of a so _
_ _ _ All together there.
We've got a nice little a7 chord a [F#m] dominant seventh _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
[N] All right _ now to further blues this up.
We're gonna go to the fourth above a okay
_ I'm up at the 14th fret and
[A] _
_ _ We're gonna take this high note which again is that
_ _ [N] Is our fourth we're gonna give it that little _ _ we're gonna do a string pull to give it that little bluesy flourish there
[A] _ _ _ _ _ _ Resolve [B] that back to the a7 okay, so
[F#m] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _
_ _ [F#m] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ Now I can also use use the slide which creates a little bit more tension _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [N] _ So you you can use that stuff however you want, but I think it's kind of cool
it gives a little bit of motion and a little bit of a vocal quality to to those chords and _ _ _ _
Allows you to sort of you know if you're comping or soloing in a you know it gives you a little bit of motion a
Little bit of freedom _
Now one thing that I like to do
Myself and also with students is when working in a new lick or any kind of new concept is to take and put it in
Like a 1 4 5 progression, okay?
_ Because part of the challenge here is if you're in [A] a and you're a c6 player, and you're [N] used to the 9th fret being a
Well if you're starting this bluesy sequence it actually starts up at the 14th fret okay?
So you need to be able to see that quickly that relationship, so you need to have some sort of reference point now
I'll be honest for me being primarily a guitar player in standard tuning my reference point is
_ Think of you know that [C] this a chord here.
You know like if we were playing it kind of like this I
_ Look and see this a triad here almost like kind of pretending.
I'm in in
_ Standard tuning which might be kind of jive to some of you six c6 guys, but that's just for me
You know I need it.
I guess _ so [E] here's my actual a position
Here's my little imaginary standard tuned guitar a so I've got
_ [F#m] _ _ _
_ Now if I'm going to the four chord which is D.
I [N] can immediately go to my little D.
Shape here, okay?
Our actual D.
Shape is down here, okay?
So I'm gonna leave that up to y'all as far as finding your own reference point.
I'm sure you guys have _
Some some things you could think of that I wouldn't even think of because I'm not really seeing this tuning
As much as somebody who plays in c6 a lot so anyways my little cheap thing for the D is to go to my D
_ standard tune triad
[C] _ _ [A] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ [Bm] _ _ _ _ [A] Back to the one _ [A] and _ [C#] _ _ [F#m] _
_ _ _ _ _ [F#] then the e chord [F#] and [A#] _ _ [B] _ _
then back to the four [A] chord _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ And then [B] the one chord
_ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ then for the [Bm] five chord in
[D#] so _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ [F#] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
anyways, I hope this is of some value to somebody out there and
Just mess around with this stuff and enjoy it and good luck.
See ya _ _